Late in the third quarter of Wednesday night’s game between Rocky Mountain and Windsor, the defensive pressure was turned up by the Wizards as they tried to close the gap.

It worked as a run at the end of the third quarter led to a 41-41 tie going into the fourth.

Windsor was using high-pressure, full-court press defense and routinely subbing out four players at a time so they could play uptempo and wear down a Rocky Mountain team that was using fewer bodies.

The Lobos were able to regain a bit of composure and go on a mini 6-0 run to start the fourth and the game never was tied again as Rocky went on to win 57-52.

“In that second half, they really tried to turn up that tempo with full-court pressure and it actually worked,” Rocky coach Jon Rakiecki said. “We were forcing shots, taking quick shots and doing exactly what they wanted us to do.”

We got our composure, we kind of realized that we were winning the game and there was no hurry, we could just play together and we pulled out the win,” Rakiecki said.

The second half turned into a foul-filled contest with lots of free throws. Rocky’s Daniel Hunter went to the line 14 times in the game, every one of them coming in the second half. He hit nine.

Throughout the second half, Windsor was right with Rocky but unable to hit the big basket to take the lead. The use of rotation led to a balanced scoring attack that saw nine players score.

Rocky (1-0) was led in scoring by 15 points from Aaron Hines, 12 of them in the first half. Michael Dermody added 14.

Windsor (0-1) was led by 13 points from Dalton Walker and Dylan Ochsner’s 10 points, including three big 3-pointers in the second half.

Windsor will play Faith Christian at 3:30 p.m. today in the second game of the Gojo Sports Tip-off Classic at Fossil Ridge High School.

Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle on Twitter @Kevin_Lytle and friend him at facebook.com/KevinSLytle.